Jason Calacanis Quotes

The reason I bought the Tesla was to help fund the Model S - and because I like things that are fast, sexy and high-tech.

Average people push great people out of a company.

Perhaps we are looking at this from a wrong perspective; this search for the truth, the meaning of life, the reason of God. We all have this mindset that the answers are so complex and so vast that it is almost impossible to comprehend. I think, on the contrary, that the answers are so simple; so simple that it is staring us straight in the face, screaming its lungs out, and yet we fail to notice it. We're looking through a telescope, searching the stars for the answer, when the answer is actually a speck of dirt on the telescope lens.

The key to building a sustainable content company is to control costs.

I syndicate my Twitter activity to Facebook, but I get very little traffic from it.

I don't want someone taking half a sentence or paraphrasing me ... Just too much risk.

You have to have a big vision and take very small steps to get there. You have to be humble as you execute but visionary and gigantic in terms of your aspiration. In the Internet industry, it's not about grand innovation, it's about a lot of little innovations: every day, every week, every month, making something a little bit better.

Just start thinking about all the different services in your life. Like getting your dry cleaning picked up and dropped off. Nobody has done the Uber of that yet. But that will be Uberfied. You will arrange your dry cleaning via your phone.

Instant access to anything is the future. So if you need a tutor or a baby sitter or a massage or any service, it's going to be instantly available, 24 hours a day, through your phone, with one click.

Starting is easy. Finishing is hard.

I get a lot of emails from entrepreneurs. The best ones are short, to the point and include some question and/or the product

If you can't sell your product, it's not a product-it's a hobby.

People like rich applications on their desktop, and there is no reason why you can't have both a rich desktop and a light, cloud-based application framework. Why is it always either/or for people?

Google can say they are not in the content business, but if they are paying people and distributing and archiving their work, it is getting harder to make that case.

Today you can start a blog, build an audience, and give the advertising slots to AdBrite or Google AdSense.

It's very important as a startup to get early press because, although it may not be a large number of people, having a 'Fast Company' story - some of those people that read it are going to be your next employees and hires, your next investors.

Fire fast: Fire people who do not fit into the culture of your company and who are negative.

There is no luck, you work hard and study things intently. If you do that for long and hard enough you're successful.

Selling out isn't selling out anymore. It's getting the brass ring.

Creative destruction is gonna be the greatest thing that can happen to Manhattan.

I ain't gonna work on YouTube's farm no more.

Search folks don't understand editorial. I'm not afraid of editorial costs, just like machine-search folks are not afraid of computer servers.

As the founder of your company, you must be in love with your brand and inspired by your brand's mission if you have any hope of getting press for your product.

The first phase of social media was listening to the conversation. The second phase was joining the conversation. The third phase will be hosting the conversation on your site.

Things that look like an 'overnight success' typically are not.

Mahalo's business model is advertising. Yahoo, Google, Ask, AOL and MSN are all advertising-based. So I don't see anything wrong with advertising-based search.

The idea is that angel investors are supposed to be wealthy people supporting people who need funds, typically who are not wealthy, and don't have the ability to do it themselves.

I really think the Uberfication of everything is a trend that I didn't expect to be coming this fast. I mean, every single thing you want to do in your life, people are building services to take all the pain out.

Google indexes the world's information.

For a first-time entrepreneur, there's nothing better than being in Silicon Valley because there is so much going on, and there's such a large number of inventors, that even a B level idea or a C level idea could be nurtured and be given venture capital there.

I think entrepreneurship is a beautiful thing.

I like to get attention for the things I think are important. And I think it is important that entrepreneurs - especially young ones - not be abused.

The only way to make podcasting a real big business would be if you could somehow get the top seven podcasters to team up and make a mega-network.

The stuff coming out of Silicon Valley is dorky. Like, it's not very sexy.

Art is an adventure that never seems to end.

My mission is to grow business in Silicon Alley.

Fire people who are not workaholics.

Back in the '90s, folks were not sure if they could trust the Web, and frankly, a lot of the services back then didn't provide massive value.

The wisdom of the crowds has peaked. Web 3.0 is taking what we've built in Web 2.0 - the wisdom of the crowds - and putting an editorial layer on it of truly talented, compensated people to make the product more trusted and refined.

People can easily make millions of dollars without much work in America.

The blogosphere is real, and it can be really harsh on fakes ... so, if you're a phoney, you're going to get your bell rung.

I find podcasting an enticing space.

The Internet is about giving the consumer exactly what they want, whether there's an audience of one or 1,000 or 10,000, and then figuring out how to make money on it later.

YouTube has made a lot of changes to support time on site - a statistic they care about. But subscriber support is lacking.

Of course the first version of an all-electric sports car is going to be expensive.

Fortunes are built during the down market and collected in the up market.

My first company produced 'Silicon Alley Reporter' magazine, where I held the dual titles of CEO and Editor.

The currency of blogging is authenticity and trust.

I think Google's a brilliant company, filled with brilliant people who have done brilliant things.

In my next life, I would like to be Charlie Rose or Howard Stern or maybe something in between.

Commercial real estate is really a black box: its super opaque, and it's hard to get the information.

You have to get in the limelight based on what you do, how creative you are, and not how much money you make.

Blogging is great, and I read blogs all day long. However, my goal is really to have a deep, meaningful discussion with people. For some reason, I'm able to accomplish this best via email.

Risk-taking is my thing ... I think of my company as my chip stack.

There's nobody who has as big of a real-time logistics network than Uber.

For tech, I like the 'DailySearchCast', 'TWiT' and anything Veronica Belmont does on CNET. I think Perez Hilton is a riot, and the rest of my consumption is by people: Folks like Dave Winer, Fred Wilson, Mark Cuban, Brian Alvey, Jeff Jarvis, Xeni Jardin, etc.

I'm trying to correct what is wrong in journalism today: wasting users' time.

Social media, like blogs, are truth-seeking technologies. In fact, the Internet itself is the greatest truth-generating device ever created.

Do I think there's going to be a business in blogging? Yes.

The companies that won't do well will be the me-too companies: the fifth, sixth, seventh version of Twitter, etc.

Longevity is a big part of credibility.

I only take causes or write about things that I am passionate about, and I do it with a certain flair and a sort of wink and a nod.

I am a huge fan of capitalism and a huge fan of entrepreneurship and changing the world with technology and with entrepreneurship. Capitalism is awesome. To me, capitalism is my religion.

If you've got a good job, you should bust your butt to make your company as successful and profitable as possible.

The future of television is not on television but online. A majority of us are turning to our computers and mobile devices for news and entertainment, Millennials especially.

People's reputations are made in the bad times more than the good times.

I'm suggesting that, until America takes care of its debt, untangles the housing mess and gets unemployment under control, we all commit to working six days a week. Yep, move the standard 35-40 hour work week right up to 48 hours.

I've become addicted to playing poker because you're constantly faced with confusion, and winning is trying to make sense out of nonsense.

The tech and tech media world are meritocracies. To fall back to race as the reason why people don't break out in our wonderful oasis of openness is to do a massive injustice to what we've fought so hard to create.

If everybody has a voice, then you end up with something average.

If folks focus in on a niche and own it, there is a good chance they could make half a living from blogging.

Even if you're a relatively small player in search, that can still mean a company that's worth several billion dollars.

In the technology industry, a 48 hour work week would be, for most, a vacation.

These days, headlines are trying to get you to click.

I think it hurts blogs when they have to turn off their comments.

Obviously, New York and Boston and Los Angeles have pretty vibrant entrepreneurial scenes.

Imagine being 30 years old, thinking you were a media titan, and now you are labeled a 'scam artist.'

Near-death experiences give you balance. You become more worldly. Your ideas become bigger.

The problem today isn't low-quality journalism, it's too much noise. If one out of five 'Business Insider' stories is original, the other four would be culled.

No one has looked at news from new atomic units of content, like a tweet on Twitter.

It turns out a human being in two, three or four hours can build a search result that's much better than Google, Yahoo or Ask.

Apps, email, and social are the three things Google does not control.

What I've learned in my career is that it takes the same amount of effort to build a $10bn company as it does a $1bn company; you as the entrepreneur are going to put your entire life, your entire effort into it.

The balance of power shifts on the Internet to the individual. This is a two-way medium.

Journalists have misquoted people for so long - and quoted them out of context that for many people like to have their words on record.

I find very few folks are watching their Facebook feed, some are watching their Twitter feed, and all of them are watching their email box. So, while social networks are nice, email is still the killer application.

I've gotten more press than any entrepreneur could dream of - certainly more than I deserve - and I've never had a public relations firm working for me.